Weight on the Brain
by paynesgrey
Summary: When it comes to Sylar, Danko doesn't always listen to the voice of his conscience. Danko, Sylar, Danko x Alena implied. ONESHOT. Spoilers for 3x24, I am Sylar.


AN: Written for the "Little Things" challenge at heroes contest on Livejournal.

Weight on the Brain  


After fortifying this bizarre alliance, Danko starts to notice that he's not only acquired a collaborator, but he's also gained a wayward child. He knows that Sylar's watching him and calculating his moves for the moment he slips up.

Danko can tell he's there by the little extraneous sensations within his home, things that are subtle but don't belong there like extra strands of DNA that have latched unnaturally to the shadows of the walls.

Danko knows it's to be expected. Everything comes down to trust, and Sylar is the last person he can ever think of trusting. Sylar doesn't seem like the sort of person to trust anyone, probably not even his own mother. Still, Danko eases into the knowledge that Sylar is keeping tabs on him, like a fly on the wall, so Danko ignores him and goes about his day.

There's nothing on the surface of his identity that Sylar will ever see to refuse this deal. Additionally, Danko just thinks that Sylar has voyeuristic tendencies.

It's a part of being insecure, and Danko can tell that, no matter how much of a show the man puts on. He believes that Sylar is nothing more than a child underneath the ego and psychosis. He kills and takes what he wants because he can and has no one to tell him it's wrong, and even if he knows it's wrong, he won't listen anyway.

He scoffs to himself. Danko blames the bitch who raised him.

--

That night, Danko wakes up and remembers two dreams. The first is of Alena, beautiful, pure, and someone he's once considered his sanctuary. He dreams in flashes of his memories, of the way her lips uses to feel against his, brilliant warm against chapped cold. He dreams of snippets of her laughter, but then it turns into screaming and the scene fades. The second dream comes alive and she's dead at his boots and Sylar is grinning with blood dripping down his fingers.

His dreams always end in screaming. Always end in blood.

--

Danko sits up from his bed and sighs. He feels the unnatural weight on his brain of an extra presence in his house. He grabs his watch and opens it, running his thumb down the face.

The ticking makes a hollow echo in his barren room, but the ghost is still here. Hovering.

--

He goes to the fridge but doesn't expect anything but leftovers and orange juice. When he takes a swig from the carton, he hears the floorboards sigh in his kitchen.

"What do you want?" he asks placidly, turning around from his visitor's view. He catches his new 'fly on the wall' in the corner of his eye, leaning against his kitchen counter.

"I didn't know you were so happy to see me," Sylar says, his eyes glancing below Danko's navel.

Danko realizes the state he's in below his gray shorts, brought on by his recent dreams of Alena. He makes no special reaction to Sylar's observance, and he doesn't give Sylar the satisfaction of 'catching' him on any slip up, no matter how small and mundane.

He takes another drink of the orange juice and closes the fridge. "I'm only human," he says. He goes back to bed and slams the bedroom door.

He hopes that Sylar lets himself out. Sometimes these interludes are really pointless, but that's what a child will do. Sylar doesn't even try to mask his feeble addiction to attention.

--

Danko is not a fool. He knows how dangerous Sylar is. He's known since he read his file. He doesn't need to be told or reminded how at any moment Sylar could attack him and change his mind and go about his own machinations.

That's why Danko has a special knife for him. The knowledge of Sylar's weakness gives him leverage, and Danko always has that leverage hidden within his gear.

It's not really a special knife, just something he buys in downtown Queens and it's not even military-issue. He suspects the vender smuggled it in the US and is now peddling 'exotic' weaponry from his country – at least to appeal to the Ren Faire folk.

Danko likes the way the blade curves like a flower petal. He's sure even Sylar would enjoy the poetry of it.

--

That day he has 247 similar doubts about working with Sylar. Sometimes the voice of his conscience sounds like Noah Bennet, and that perturbs him. He can silence it for now. He knows the danger more than anyone.

However, Sylar is only doing what he ultimately wants. He doesn't care if he kills them all, picking and choosing what powers he takes or discards. Slowly, if his theory is correct, all of the powers will overload him.

Maybe he won't even have to use that beautiful knife. Danko thinks that would be a damn shame.

--

A few days after Sylar uses his shape-shifting, he stops stalking him. Danko doesn't feel the specter in his home anymore. He doesn't get any more late night visits, and he suspects that Sylar is cracking sooner than he's thought.

He's frustrated when reports come in that Sylar is alive, walking around and moping in plain view, using his own face when Danko tells him not to.

Like any misbehaving child, Danko meets up with him and warns him to keep on track. He tells him about identity crisis and having an anchor. Sylar whines, but maybe he's listening when he takes Danko's watch in his hand.

Danko has to remind himself that after this meeting, he has to wipe his father's watch clean.

--

He starts to suspect that something isn't right with Sylar and Rebel. It's entirely too easy to ferret out the child while Sylar disappears. Sylar doesn't even take the child's ability, something Danko can't even understand. It's useful; it's something a lot of people would kill for.

Maybe Sylar's identity crisis is getting worse.

Danko plans to buy another knife.

--

They're standing in Nathan Petrelli's office, and Sylar is perturbed Danko didn't let him kill the senator. He starts to think that maybe Sylar isn't like a child after all. Or, he's just spreading his wings and finally leaving the nest.

Either way, it's Danko who learns the lesson this time. He's put too much faith in fancy knives, and he's mistakenly silenced the little warnings in his head that should have been closer to the surface.

Sylar stands in front of him after he pulls the bloody knife out of his skull, and Danko hears that annoying voice of his conscience in his head, and once again, it sounds like Noah Bennet. It's way too accurate.

Way too clear.

THE END


End file.
